RomanPunks is a retrofuturistic, cyberpunk derivative world-building project inspired by fine art, history and the cryptopunk movement.
A total of 1,000 RomanPunk characters have been frozen in time and minted as Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum, WAX, Polygon and Algorand blockchains.
RomanPunk characters are comprised of commoners and famous individuals based on Roman history, art history and pop culture.
The basis for RomanPunk lore and backstories is exhaustively researched by history/sci-fi buff and co-founder, Punktavian.
All images are drawn by hand by woman artist and co-founder, Cleopunktra, without the aid of AI or generative tools.
RomanPunks came into existence through early minting on OpenSea, promoting on Twitter and building a Discord community through giveaways and engagement. The idea of a cyberpunk-derivative ‘RomanPunk’ theme was in our heads for years, but it was the success of the Cryptopunks that became the catalyst for project conception and launch.
After a hard working first 60 days spent networking and attracting new collectors to RomanPunks, our community had begun to flourish and sales increased. We began to offer our collectors an opportunity to battle their NFTs in a tournament bracket powered by dice rolls.
Encouraged by the tight knit community and the carbon-neutral blockchain with lightning fast and low cost transactions, we launched 'romanpunksio' collection on WAX Blockchain as the first step to expand the backstories of our RomanPunk characters and the baseline for future development of a card game.
RomanPunks integrated with Chainlink Labs to utilize VRF (Verified Randomness Function) to host a giveaway raffle for our holders. We developed a smart contract on Ethereum which guarantees true random number selection on chain and can be used for a wide range of functions that require random selection.
After much anticipation in the community, we released our first WAX NFT card 'pack' through the Neftyblocks platform, which sold out in less than a week.
We launched our Twitch channel and begun building an audience by offering numerous giveaways of WAX NFTs from our collection, as well as giving participants a chance to win RomanPunk ETH NFT airdrops for taking top spot at the end of the 'season'.
As firm believers in a metaverse future and land owners in The Sandbox, we undertook to build the RomanPunk Colosseum on 1x1 land and entered our experience "Gladiator Bloodsport" into a GameJam contest. We will continue to build the Colosseum into a PVP arena and social hub once The Sandbox offers creators the ability to do so.
Thanks to the user friendly tools offered by NeftyBlocks, we launched a comprehensive blending system on WAX, allowing our collectors to blend the common NFTs they earn in our Discord RPG up into Legendary famous NFTs through the use of blending 'coins' that can also be earned on the Discord as reward for helping to promote the RomanPunks project.
We launched the VX collection on Polygon. Each owner of an ETH NFT gets their voxel equivalent airdropped to them, and these NFTs can be redeemed for official NFTs on The Sandbox Marketplace once available.
All 1,000 original, unique 1:1 RomanPunk characters hand drawn by Cleopunktra and minted on OpenSea.
The RomanPunk WAX NFT Trading Card Fighter Pack Series II consists of 3 NFTs randomly selected from over 236 characters.
Upcoming plans for RomanPunks include:
Below is a comprehensive and searchable directory of all 1,000 RomanPunk Characters.
Born 405 AD in Pelso, Tina was the illegitimate daughter of Godigisel and a servant woman. Interdimensional traveler and half sister to King Genseric, she led Vandal troops razing cities across Spain, Africa and Italy, culminating in the great Sack of Rome in 455 AD.
Born in 88 AD in Salona, Callistrate led a cohort of vampire and zombie hunters deep into the heart of Dacia on orders by Trajan to destroy the scourge; however, the soldiers never returned and are believed to have been transported to a distance time and place.
Born in 108 BC in Tarsus, Dex was a formidable pirate who was captured during Sulla’s purges and forced into interdimensional slavery mining titanium on the Jovian moon of Io where he operates a covert methamphetamine trafficking ring.
Born in 260 AD in Palmyra, Elysia is the daughter of a wealthy priest of Sol Invictus and was advisor to Queen Zenobia. She rose to become a preeminent chronocartographer, a specialized navigator who maps the pathways between dimensions. Upon Aurelian’s invasion, Elysia charmed the emperor, offering her temporal services to immortalize him through time. But hubris brought his end, as a time assassin intervened to stop Aurelian’s power grab.
Born in 279 BC in Terme, at a young age Babe fell in love with Remigius, a dimension hopping rube from the 20th century AD. Soon tiring of the domestic lifestyle, she fled to the 28th century to join the Amazonian sisterhood of cybergladiators.
Born 2172 AD in Petra, Salim is an itinerant lounge lizard now anchored to the tiki bar at Neo-Carthage’s Atlanta Hotel after gambling away his life savings and falling into crippling debt with the Red Sands Syndicate. Manipulated by Zalika Malika to spy on the governor and his associates, his drunkenness and ineptitude soon render him a liability, forcing him to flee underground to escape both the syndicate and the governor’s wrath. Eventually, he stumbles into the hands of the rebels, who pity his sorry state but recognize how his blunders can create unforeseen opportunities.
Born 181 AD in Adrianople, Groucho is a stand-up comedian and estranged brother of Emperor Maximinus who travels interdimensionally to lampoon political leaders in the public forum, only to disappear through a portal before he can be arrested.
Born 95 BC in Perinthus, Leo fought alongside Spartacus before being captured and forced into gladiatorial combat. Renowned for slaying the most zombies in a single bout, his moment of greatest triumph was interrupted when his consciousness was ‘freejacked’ by time-traffickers to 23rd century AD Britannia. Now, he battles in a cloned body for the Interdimensional Cybergladiator League (ICL), as part of the AlgoSaxons, a squad sponsored by the Algorand Foundation.
Born 321 AD in Sirmium, Gisel was a lover of a young Constantius II who refused to publicly acknowledge her existence. In a jealous rage, she learned the art of war, joining the forces of Magnentius. After losing in the Battle of Mursa, Gisel was enslaved as a gladiator in the emperor’s stable.
Born 1720 BC in Babylon, Sarpana, granddaughter of the legendary Hammurabi, is a celebrated dimension-hopping performance artist. Regularly featured at Elektrosar, an interdimensional electronica festival in the Hanging Gardens, and at Club LIV in a post-cyberpunk 1970s AD Rome, Sarpana merges EDM, disco, funk and pole dancing to stun audiences through space and time.
Born 1969 AD in Lugdunum, Vivienne is a 42x Olympic shooting gold medalist and undefeated Universal Laser Tag League (ULTL) champion. A household name across galaxies and dimensions, she is known for her ironclad mettle and heart of stainless steel.
Born 2171 AD in Eblana, Rian served as a ballistarius in the bloody and costly Dacian vampire war. His alcoholic patrician father gambled away their family fortune, so Rian became a drifter, working odd jobs including chariot salesman and part-time gigolo in Neo-Carthage. After witnessing a murder at the Atlanta Hotel, Rian reluctantly finds himself drawn into a plot to blackmail the culprit, where his desire to maintain a transient, low-responsibility lifestyle clashes with an emerging sense of justice and loyalty.
Born 2020 AD in Neo-Volubilis, Cyp is a revolutionary soothsayer with the unique ability to peer into the future using a special telescopic lens. As his faithful poodle vigilantly stands guard, Cyp uses his powers of foresight to aid his revolutionary ally, a clone of Hannibal Barca. Yet, mindful of the warnings from Oedipus Rex, Hannibal remains suspicious of Cyp’s prophecies. Undeterred, Cyp continues to optimistically prophesize Hannibal’s inevitable triumph over the corrupt Roman occupiers in North Africa.
Born in 131 BC in Jutland, Storm was a blacksmith in the disastrous war against the Roman forces of Gaius Marius. After their defeat, his wife, Oda, was enslaved as Marius’ concubine and he was cast into a dimensional portal to serve as a gladiator in a parallel universe of a Roman atomic age.
Born in 168 BC in Myra, Cagla is a brainwashed soldier subservient to the alien and cyborg invaders who established a secret foothold in Lycia during they heyday of the Roman Republic.
